R&D Reports

vol. 2001 - I (2001.5.31 issue)

Delaus®, A New Fungicide for Rice Blast Control

Delaus® (diclocymet :(RS)-2-cyano-N-[(R-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)ethyl]-3,3-dimethylbutyr-amide) is a novel fungicide for use in rice. Delaus® has systemic properties as well as long lasting effectiveness and controls both rice leaf and panicle blast infection by granular application to rice seedling boxes. Foliar treatment of Delaus® also shows excellent control of rice blast. Delaus® has been registered in April 2000 in Japan.( 4 - 13 by Yukio OGURI, Akio MANABE, Yoshimi YAMADA, Masao INOUE, Minoru NAKANO, Orie KADOOKA, Hiroshi ANZAI )

Flumioxazine as a New Herbicide

Flumioxazine was discovered and developed by Sumitomo Chemical Company. Flumioxazine is used as an herbicide to control a wide variety of weeds in crop field, such as soybeans, peanut and tree fruit field, and non-crop area. Flumioxazine inhibits protoporphyrinogen oxidase of chlorophyll biosynthesis pathway. Flumioxazine has very big margin of safety against environment and human health. Flumioxazine had already been launched in South America, France, China and Japan, and registered in the United State within 2001.( 14 - 25 by Eiki NAGANO, Ryo SATO, Masahiro YAMADA, Yuji FUNAKI, Ritsuko FURUTA, Takuo FUJISAWA, Satoru KAWAMURA )

Improvement of Tolerance to High Irradiation in Plants by Introducing the Light-stress Inducible Zinc Finger Protein Gene

Dry or semi-dry lands have essentially high potential of CO2 fixation, because they occupy about one-third of all land surface on earth. In the fundamental study to develop transgenic plants that could survive under severe environmental stress, we are investigating the light-stress tolerance of plants on the molecular basis. The model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, showed increased tolerance to highintensity light when pre-exposed to medium-intensity light (light acclimation). Among characterized acclimation-induced genes, we identified a zinc finger protein RHL41. The transgenic plants overexpressing the RHL41 gene showed an increased tolerance to high-intensity light. RHL41 could function as a regulatory factor in the acclimation/photo-protective process.( 26 - 32 by Asako IIDA, Kenji OEDA )

Nenchaku-Kun® has two formulations, Nenchaku-Kun® Ekizai（starch 5% soluble concentrate used after 100-time dilution by water) and Nenchaku-Kun® 80% starch 80% WP used after 500-time dilution by water). At spraying test in the laboratory, the starch formulations showed high efficacy against leaf-mite, Tetranychus urticae, T. kanzawai, Panonychus citri and P. ulmi. In the strawberry greenhouse, treatment by the combination of Nenchaku-Kun® Ekizai and a biotic pesticide, predacious mite, Phytoseiulus persimilis controlled T. kanzawai population over 30 days. In the citrus fields, P. citri population did not increase about 90 days by two-time spraying of Nenchaku-Kun® 80 between late-May and early-September. On the trees treated by the starch formulation, various native natural enemies of P. citri, predacious mites, mitephagous ladybirds and thrips, and Oligota spp. were observed. Since Nenchaku-Kun® had neither direct killing action nor residue effect against natural enemies, it seems that direct killing action of Nenchaku-Kun® and predation effect by natural enemies controlled increase of the density of the mites.Nenchaku-Kun® has highly safe for various lives, for example, people, animals, fishes, bees and natural enemies. As it kills leaf-mites by physical action, no insecticide resistance develops. Therefore, Nenchaku-Kun® is an optimum material for Integrated farm system and IPM system.( 33 - 37 by Masaru HONDO, Nobutaka TANAKA, Eiji SATO )

Discovery and Developmental Research of the Novel Antipsychotic Agent, Perospirone (Lullan®)

Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals successfully developed the novel serotonin-dopamine antagonis t-type antipsychotic agent, perospirone (Lullan® approved in Dec. 2000), which was discovered from studies based on the synthetic technology of the azapirone derivatives. Perospirone, unlike conventional antipsychotics, has potent antagonistic actions both for serotonin-2 and dopamine-2 receptors and showed antipsychotic effects in various animal models. It was confirmed in the clinical studies that perospirone was effective not only for the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, but also for the negative symptoms which are resistant to the conventional agents. In addition, extrapyramidal side effects of perospirone were found to be weak. These findings indicate that perospirone is the new type antipsychotic agent with a broad clinical efficacy.( 38 - 45 by Yukihiro OHNO, Fujio ANTOKU, Toshiro TSUCHIYA )

Frontier of the Medicine in the New Century -Imaging of the Brain Function -

Recently, imaging diagnosis plays a major role in clinical field. Especially in the brain diseases, non-invasive imaging is essential for diagnosis. X-ray computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) visualize the shape of tissue, in contrast, nuclear medicine with radiopharmaceuticals and special equipment provides the functional imaging such as cerebral blood flow or metabolism. Therefore, nuclear medicine provides the essentially different information with CT and MRI. For instance, in the early stage of brain stroke or dementia, MRI cannot detect any morphological changes, but nuclear medicine can detect the changes in cerebral blood flow and metabolism. Moreover, only nuclear medicine can perform the imaging of neurotransmitters and their receptors or transporters. In this review, present status of the neuroimaging by nuclear medicine and our company's challenges will be discribed.( 46 - 54 by Hiroki MATSUMOTO, Akira MAEKAWA )

Application of Polymer Beads as Antiblocking Agents

Sumitomo Chemical has developed the new polymer bead ABA ; "CS series", which has a narrow particle size distribution and average size of 1.1, 1.8 and 3.0μm, respectively. CS series ABA has a good affinity with polypropylene, resulting in the superior performances of OPP film (low blocking, low haziness, high transparency, and good anti-scratch), as well as in less manufacturing trouble like ABA deposition onto rolls of the machine. With CS series ABA, a tailor made surface can be designed, and superior winding characteristics of film roll is obtained.( 55 - 61 by Takeshi EBARA, Hiroyuki TANIMURA, Satoru HOSODA, Kazuhiro YAMAZAKI, Tuyoshi HASHIMOTO, Hajime SADATOSHI )

The Use of the ARCR to Estimate Safe Handling and Transportation Temperatures

In industrial chemical production it is important to have the quantitative information about safe handling, storage and transportation temperatures for the given process. An adiabatic decomposition temperature for 24 hrs (ADT24) is the temperature at which TMR (time to maximum rate) is 24 hrs derived from adiabatic measurements. A self-accelerating decomposition temperature (SADT) is the lowest ambient air temperature at which a self-reactive substance undergoes an exothermic reaction in specified commercial package in a period of seven days or less. In this article, the methodology of using the ARCR to obtain ADT24 and SADT values are described together with the ∅ correction procedures of the ARCR data.( 62 - 70 by Takeshi KIKUCHI )